"Hope
must be grounded in reality; and it must be invested in the right
place. When reality gives it the lie, then it must be abandoned."

It
was obvious from the moment that Barack Obama appointed Leon Panetta to
head the CIA that there was going to be no serious investigation —
much less prosecution — of the high crimes of torture committed by the
agency at the order of the Bush White House. Panetta, a Clinton retread
(who actually began his career in the Nixon administration), has always
been a bland, feckless, obedient servant of the Establishment; he has
no outside power base, no pull, no heft, no popularity — nothing that
would enable him to grab hold of the CIA with both hands and clean that
fetid, blood-encrusted house. And of course, it was precisely this kind
of powerless figure that Barack Obama wanted in the post.

The
appointment was very typical of the Obama operation. Panetta had made a
few very mild statements over the years that would allow him to be
passed off as some kind of "progressive" in the witless, substanceless
"process stories" that the corporate media do for new government
appointees. This would be enough to keep the progressive "base" —
which was overwhelmingly inclined to give Obama every benefit of every
doubt — lulled long enough to get the patsy into the job. Of course,
to actually get the job, Panetta had to make it clear to
Congress that he wasn't going to stir up any trouble on the torture
front, and was willing to play along with anything the Unitary
Executive might order him to do. But the corp-media made little of
this, concentrating instead on Panetta's rote assertions that "America
doesn't torture," and his embrace of the Army Field Manual as the
standard for CIA interrogation. (Of course, the vaunted manual also
allows practices that any rational human being would consider torture, but that's another story.)

Once Panetta was confirmed in his figurehead director's role, the Obama White House then confirmed its true intentions
regarding the rogue agency. It has put the actual running of the CIA
into the hands of one of the top figures involved in the Bush torture
program. Scott Horton at Harper's points us to the remarkable story by investigator John Sifton, detailing Obama's retention — and promotion — of Bush's willing torturers. From Sifton:

On
Monday night the confidential report of the International Committee of
the Red Cross on the CIA’s secret detention and interrogation program
was published on the website of the New York Review of Books. The
report confirms previous allegations about CIA abuses against
detainees. Unlike earlier reporting, however, the document is based on
irrefutable first hand information: interviews with detainees and U.S.
officials. The document describes in stark detail the CIA’s use of
forced standing, sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation, assaults, and
waterboarding. It also discloses the participation of CIA medical
personnel in torture....

The
New York Times reported that Leon Panetta, the current CIA director,
has taken the position that “no one who took actions based on legal
guidance from the Department of Justice at the time should be
investigated, let alone punished.” Yet a number of CIA officials
implicated in the torture program not only remain at the highest levels
of the agency, but are also advising Panetta. Panetta’s attempt to
suppress the issue is making Bush’s policy into the Obama
administration’s dirty laundry.

Take
Stephen Kappes. At the time of the worst torture sessions outlined in
the ICRC report, Kappes served as a senior official in the Directorate
of Operations—the operational part of the CIA that oversees
paramilitary operations as well as the high-value detention program.
(The directorate of operations is now known as the National Clandestine
Service.) Panetta has kept Kappes as deputy director of the CIA—the
number two official in the agency. One of Kappes’ deputies from
2002-2004, Michael Sulick, is now director of the National Clandestine
Service—the de facto number three in the agency. Panetta’s refusal to
investigate may be intended to protect his deputies. Since the basic
facts about their involvement in the CIA interrogation program are now
known, Panetta’s actions are increasingly looking like a cover-up.

Sifton
also makes a very important point about the Red Cross report on torture
that has been almost entirely ignored (which is not surprising, given
that the Red Cross report itself has been almost entirely ignored by
the corporate media that gives us the "news" of the day):

Another
overlooked fact is this: the ICRC report is an important legal document
that contains well-sustained allegations of criminal conduct with legal
significance. Unlike earlier claims in books, magazines, and
newspapers, the ICRC’s allegations are official notices from a legally
recognized entity. The ICRC, after all, is not Human Rights Watch, the
Washington Post, or The New Yorker, all of which have reported on the
CIA’s secret prison program. The ICRC is an official entity recognized
under the Geneva Conventions and various other earlier international
treaties relating to armed conflict and prisoners of war. The ICRC is
specifically tasked under the Geneva Conventions to visit prisoners and
communicate with detaining powers to uphold the conventions’ spirit and
purpose. Its interpretations and statements on matters of international
law are held as legally authoritative. As such, the ICRC’s allegations
have legal significance beyond previous disclosures. In effect, the
document itself is evidence in a criminal case.

Note
in particular the report’s date, February 14, 2007—Valentine’s Day. On
that date, the U.S. government was put on notice about the allegations
of CIA torture. (The ICRC also wrote to the U.S. governments about the
issue of disappearances at several points in 2003-2006.)

Under
international law—the Geneva Conventions, the Convention against
Torture, and basic precepts of customary international law—the United
States has a positive obligation to investigate and prosecute persons
alleged to have committed torture and other violations of the laws of
war. As of Valentine’s Day 2007, and possibly earlier, the U.S.
government was obligated to investigate and prosecute the abuses
detailed in the report. The United States’ failure to do so is a
recurring breach of international law.

The
United States has formally adopted the Geneva Conventions and the
Convention Against Torture; they are not some kind of "foreign
devilment" messing with our sacred sovereignty: they are the law of the
land. But it is clear that the Obama Administration does not have and
never had the slightest intention of obeying the law and instigating
the required investigations and prosecutions of the high crime — the
capital crime — of ordering and committing torture. And the reason for
this refusal is also clear: the Obama Administration wants to retain
the power to torture, to conduct "paramilitary operations" with secret
armies and single assassins, to carry out mass, illegal surveillance of
the population with no legal accountability, to do "whatever it takes"
to keep the machine of war and domination churning at full strength.
That is why they have retained apparatchiks like Kappes and Sulick;
that is why they are not only defending the Bush gang's egregious
assertions of authoritarian power, but are actually seeking to expand
them, as Glenn Greenwald and others have detailed.

It
is understandable that people hunger desperately for change after the
open, scalding evils of the Bush years. It is understandable that they
would seize on an attractively packaged figure who made a few
progressive noises, carried a great deal of genuinely symbolic weight
due to his race, and was more personable, cool and articulate than his
god-awful predecessor. It is understandable that many people would want
to give this figure the benefit of the doubt, to turn a blind eye to
the many warning signs that emerged during the campaign, and hope for
the best. After all, who would not rather live in hope?

But hope
must be grounded in reality; and it must be invested in the right
place. When reality gives it the lie, then it must be abandoned. There
is no hope to be found in the Obama Administration: no hope for genuine
change, no hope for a clean break (or any kind of break) from the
relentless and ruthless promotion of empire, oligarchy and
militarism. By his own choices — his appointments, his policies, his
court actions, his rhetoric — Barack Obama has demonstrated beyond all
doubt his sincere and abiding commitment to "continuity" in the most
pernicious and corrosive elements of America's lawless hyper-state. To place one's hope in such a figure is a crippling, disastrous folly.

The
only hope that can be associated with the Obama Administration is the
long-shot, rapidly fading, outside chance that they could be forced —
very much against their will — into at least slowing the
militarist-oligarchic juggernaut by strong, sustained, massive,
informed political opposition from the public. (And no, not the
"tea-bag" fantasies of the fascistic Right, whose only real complaint
about Obama — aside from the unspoken one about his skin color — is
that he is not militarist and oligarchic enough.)

I don't
believe this will happen, that this kind of genuine and fruitful
dissent will arise on a scale large enough to pressure the
administration into making changes in order to save its own political
skin. Nor do I, as some do, place any "hopes" — if that's the word —
that some outside power (or combination of powers) or calamitous event
(or combination of calamitous events) will force the juggernaut onto
another course. As in the case of the present global financial
collapse, the reaction of the elite to such circumstances will be to do
more of the same, to try more and more desperately to return to the
status quo — or, as today, to exploit the panic and chaos of disaster
to extend their own power and privilege even further. And with a
militarist elite that possesses an arsenal capable of bringing the
world down with them if they can't hold on to power, I can't
contemplate such a Götterdämmerung of suffering and death with anything
like "hope."

But I also know that I don't know what the future
might bring. So whatever small hope I still have resides in the
flickering possibility of engendering the kind of large-scale, genuine,
fruitful dissent described above. I realize that this is a rather slim
reed to hang on to; yet it is a mighty oak when compared to a hope
invested in leaders who protect and promote torturers, who perpetuate
— and laud — mass war crimes, who expand tyrannical powers, and who sell their children's birthrights to a keep a tiny, rapacious elite in ascendancy. I will take my slim reed over such brutal delusions any day.